


The Boy Who Tracked a Vette

by Kahvi



Series: Thor and the Demon [4]
Category: Norse Religion & Lore, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Christianity, M/M, Vikings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 07:10:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: A frail young boy grows up to wish for a better life, while a strange creature roams the woods near his home. More legends from the universe of Thor and the Demon, co-created by Roadstergal and myself.





	The Boy Who Tracked a Vette

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Smith who Trapped a Demon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14879676) by [Roadstergal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadstergal/pseuds/Roadstergal). 



Something had come to live in the waters up North. 

The boy heard hushed whispers from those returning from Viking, the tall, burly men and sometimes, rarely, women, now huddled and speaking in soft voices, those who knew how cutting runes into staves and hiding them, to ward off evil. The boy, whose family did not have time for such high-minded crafts as writing, dug them up and looked at them, and learned their secret ways. It was the fishermen of the Northern villages, they said, who had driven this vette to their lands. Scaled and brown like a fish, it was, those fishermen who had caught a glimpse of it noted. Delicate fins like a rabbit fish, but eyes of blue instead of green. Its mournful howls drove the fish from the nets of the villagers. For months, none would venture near the fjord. There was talk among those who believed in Christ the White that this was a punishment sent for what they called the heathen ways of the village, but everyone knew that Kvitekrist was weak compared to the All Father and Thor, greatest of his sons. 

The boy had been born wrong. Even as a babe he was sickly, crying and screaming and would not take the breast of his mother, and grew weaker still. His father thought him a bytting; a changeling sent from those who lived in the mountains and under the ground, but his mother argued that the village was so far from the mountain, and that no one had seen so much as a hulder in the woods. And so, reluctantly, they spared him. Still, as he grew, his mother sometimes thought the kinder thing would have been to set him out in the woods in winter. Even if he had not been one of their own, the people of the woods might have taken him in, or if not, death might be kinder than to live as he did. 

As a child, his limbs were thin and weak like kindling, his eyes were too big for his scrawny head, and he took badly to both heat and cold. When they set him to herd the goats, he sneezed and coughed until he could not stand, and when they set him to work the fields, he did the same. When they set him to fish, he caught a fever from the wind and waves that nearly lost him his life, and when they set him to hunt, he could not keep chase with the pray, nor could his weak hands fashion snares to hold them. And so, they let him tend the pigs. 

His family’s farm was next to the seat of the Jarl, and the Jarl’s son was a mighty warrior, even as a young man. The two grew close, and as they grew, the boy came to look on him with love - he would nothing more than go to Viking with him. The Jarl also had a slave, a smith of great cunning and handsome of face, whom it was rumored the Jarl was planning to set free, so great was his skill. The boy went to the smith and asked: “I would go to Viking this season. Can you make me a sword so I can join the others?” 

The smith laughed. “And are you one of the Jarl’s men? Why should I serve you? Besides, you’re barely a boy. Be off with you.” 

The boy bit down his anger, and went to the barracks of the Jarl’s men. There, he found a tunic and a fine belt, and a helmet that hid his face. Dressed in this manner, he returned to the smith. 

“Good smith; I would go to Viking this season. Can you make me some mail so I can join the others?”

The smith laughed. “You may be dressed like the Jarl’s men, but by your voice and your stature I can see you are just a boy. Be off with you.” 

Again, the boy bit down his anger, and returned the clothes and helmet. He knew the smith would not be fooled, and was humbled before him. The boy favored men in love, and though his heart belonged to the Jarl’s son, so did it now ache for the stubborn smith. Defeated, the boy walked out into the woods, remembering his mother’s words: If the people of the wood were not his kin, they may be willing to take him in. 

Just as he came to the edge of the woods, a hulder met him. She was as beautiful as the day was long, but poking out of her skirts, the boy could see a long cow’s tail, swaying back and forth. “What business have you in the woods,” cooed the hulder. 

“I have come to seek succor among your people, fair hulder.” 

“Is that so? Never have I heard of anyone coming to the hulderfolk willingly. Would you not rather be among your own people?”

“I am an outsider,” said the boy, “they say I am not of this world. I am too small and frail and thin. I cannot work, and I cannot go to Viking.I am mistrusted among my fellows and unloved by all; I have little to keep me there.”

The hulder looked him up and down, and thought a while. “This will not do,” she said. “We have too many mouths to feed as it is. But perhaps I can help you, if you will help my kind in turn, when the time comes?”

The boy, having no other options, readily agreed. And so the hulder gave him a potion, and told him to lie down in the clearing just beyond, and drink it. So he did. He fell into a long and feverish sleep, filled with bad dreams and pain, but when he awoke, he saw that his body had grown so tall and broad as to make him head and shoulders above the height of the other young men in the village. His arms were as wide as the blade of a long-ship oar, and his legs as thick as tree-trunks. 

Again, the boy went to the barracks of the Jarl, and borrowed a tunic and helmet, both of which now fit him almost too snugly. And again he went to the smith, and asked: “Good smith; I would go to Viking next season. Will you make me a shield, so I can join the others?”

The smith did not recognize him, but made him a shield finer than any in the Viking party; round and smooth, and painted in the colors of the Jarl. “To him,” the boy the swore, “I pledge my undying loyalty.” For he would protect the Jarl’s son, and bring him safely home. And so the boy went to Viking. And as the wheel of the year turned to Jól, the darkest night before the light turned, talk of demons and vetter died down. 

 

* * *

Something had come to live in the forest near the village.   
  
The farmers bewailed their fate, that the fishermen up North had driven this evil to their lands. Scaled and brown like a poison-spitting worm, it was, those farmers who had caught a glimpse of it noted. Swift, though, the vette was, with large eyes of blue. Its mournful howls disturbed the pigs and caused the milk of the goats to dry, and so they conspired to drive it away. The boy returned from Viking, shamed, as the son of the Jarl had died in battle. Though he rested now, he knew, in the halls of Valhalla, the boy had sworn him an oath.    
  
As he walked the long way to the Jarl’s seat to bring him the terrible news, loud voices caught his ear. He could see a gathering of elders, the Jarl among them, and many of the warriors returned from Viking joining them. There was talk, he heard, of a vette living in the woods. “Let us be bold,” he told the others. “We are powerful, we have skills at hunting and tracking. Let us hunt the vette!”   
  
“And what if you fail?” asked the Jarl. “All of our youth will be wiped out. Our farms will wither.”   
  
“Then I will hunt him on my own,” he said, determined, and set out the next day to track it. At least in this, he would not fail the Jarl, and his dead love.    
  
Its traces were light and subtle, but so keen now was the boy’s eyesight and careful were his footfalls. He tracked the vette tirelessly over two days and one night, and knew he was close when he heard rustling in the undergrowth. At once he remembered the words of the hulder, and knew what he must do, for the oldest oath taken must always be honored first. Just as the vette emerged, the boy lay down his sword and shield, and said: “Good vette, I have no quarrel with your kin. But I ask that you leave us alone.” 

In terror or confusion, he knew not which, the vette cast seiðr upon him, and he was overcome with howling forces and illusions. His tongue would not move, his limbs were as old, trembling trees, and he fell into deep, dreamless sleep. His fellows found him a day later, lying on a bed of dead leaves.   
  
“Might does no good against this demon,” the smith complained when they met to discuss this failure. The Jarl had freed him now, and the boy saw he had made good use of his freedom, for his forge was now full of wondrous things, the likes of which the village had never seen. “We must use cunning.”   
  
“Cunning,” said the boy, with a sniff. It irked him that the smith did not know him. And as though he had no used cunning, in his own approach! “What is to say, good smith, that the vette needs conquering at all?”   
  
“Our greatest warrior has failed,” spoke the seiðrmann. “As you see, his mind has grown frail with the effort; he knows not of what he speaks. It is time for more subtle arts.”

No matter how much the boy protested, the smith and the elders would have their way. And so, the boy carefully followed the smith as he prepared to track the vette himself, or demon, as he called it. He was a former follower of Christ the White, and his ways were as strange as his words. 

Great were the labors of the smith; he had not the skill of the smiths of Nidavellir, but as a mortal of Midgard, his talents were unmatched. He made traps of great cunning, forging jaws of strong metal, nets of tough reindeer entrails, tripwires slim and strong as spider-silk. Deep into the forest went the smith, and set his traps; he baited them with sweet cups of fermented honey.   
  
Long was the wait of the smith and the boy; three days and three nights end to end passed before there was any sign of the vette. But on the last night, it came. It neared the offerings carefully, reaching longingly for the fragrant mead, and the smith’s trap worked true. The vette cried out woefully, tearing at the net with its claws, but sturdy was the work of the smith, and the more he fought, the more tightly tangled the vette became.   
  
To the boy’s great surprised, the smith spoke with the vette, and gained its trust. “I have nothing,” the vette told the smith. “A fire-demon I was, from the molten rivers of Helheim. I gave my heart to one of the Aesir, and his betrayal of my love has quenched my fire. I roam Midgard, homeless, joyless, while the Aesir revel in the warm sun. I have nothing to give to you, mortal.”

At this tale, the smith was greatly moved. “Demon, the only ransom we desire of you is to leave our lands. Yet your story has touched my heart. I am an outsider, not of this land. I am mistrusted among my fellows and unloved by the women; I have little to keep me here. I do not fear the Aesir as gods. Give me your pledge, demon, to protect me from all harm, and I will bring you to the land of the Aesir to accuse him that played you false. I will make you clothing of metal and a pair of sly seax.”

The pledged his protection to the smith with a drop of dark blood from his finger. The smith likewise pledged never to rest until they found the bright lands of the Aesir. He unwound the vette from the net, and together went they into the mountains, seeking the bright bridge that would take them to Asgard.

The boy, hearing this, saw his chance to save his lost love, and to see the fabled lands of the gods, and followed them, unseen. 

The men and women of the village rejoiced, as no one ever disrupted their herds again. Yet they mourned the loss of their smith, and some did wonder at the young, strong warrior who appeared one day only to vanish soon after. 

But there were those, who dwelled close to the woods, that sometimes heard the hulderfolk sing a haunting song - of loss, or love, of joy or sadness, it was hard to say. 


End file.
